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The Week in Review: The Loss of My Mother

Tuesday marked the third anniversary of the loss of my mother. It’s one of the many difficult dates on the calendar, where Mom is concerned. She wouldn’t wish for us to carry this much pain and heart ache, but grief is just like that. It ebbs and flows and sometimes feels like it drowns us. No one person can be blamed for how they grieve or what they do about it…their struggle to smother it or ignore it or constantly process it…it all has to be okay. By embracing the journey, one never truly sees the world in the same way, but one can see the world and be in the world and carry on.

So…I put on a pair of Mom’s socks in the morning. I brought her socks home with me three years ago when I headed out from Dad’s on my Trans Canada drive west. In my mind I suppose I thought that at some point the socks would wear out, but, I’ve been lucky that way.

I said the rosary out loud before leaving for school. Thoughts of Mom had inspired that.

Grief is exhausting. I remember that I felt tired on Tuesday. I went over in my head what I was doing before and during and after receiving the news about my mother’s passing. I played the one voice recording from a telephone call Mom had made years ago…one I had never erased. I wanted to hear Mom’s voice.

I had a cry, a couple of cries, privately. I was so grateful to be painting during the day, with grade ones. They painted kites and were so very excited and into it that life captured me…a wind carried me…and I felt lighter also.

I Skyped with Dad. I always look forward to that.

I went to the pond and took a photograph of a bush.

I will always miss my mother. The thing is, I was so very blessed to be her daughter that every day I know that I lucked out. I am grateful that I carry so much of her in me. I like it that sometimes when I laugh, I hear her laugh. I love and never take for granted, my family.